Related papers: Optimal Limited Contingency Planning
This brief paper presents simple simulation-based algorithms for obtaining an approximately optimal policy in a given finite set in large finite constrained Markov decision processes. The algorithms are adapted from playing strategies for…
Combating an epidemic entails finding a plan that describes when and how to apply different interventions, such as mask-wearing mandates, vaccinations, school or workplace closures. An optimal plan will curb an epidemic with minimal loss of…
This paper concentrates on the minimal hitting probability of continuous-time controlled Markov systems (CTCMSs) with countable state and finite admissible action spaces. The existence of an optimal policy is first proved. In particular,…
This paper focuses on managing the cost of deliberation before action. In many problems, the overall quality of the solution reflects costs incurred and resources consumed in deliberation as well as the cost and benefit of execution, when…
Markov automata combine non-determinism, probabilistic branching, and exponentially distributed delays. This compositional variant of continuous-time Markov decision processes is used in reliability engineering, performance evaluation and…
Prediction sets can wrap around any ML model to cover unknown test outcomes with a guaranteed probability. Yet, it remains unclear how to use them optimally for downstream decision-making. Here, we propose a decision-theoretic framework…
Covert planning refers to a class of constrained planning problems where an agent aims to accomplish a task with minimal information leaked to a passive observer to avoid detection. However, existing methods of covert planning often…
Decision-theoretic planning with risk-sensitive planning objectives is important for building autonomous agents or decision-support systems for real-world applications. However, this line of research has been largely ignored in the…
For safety, autonomous systems must be able to consider sudden changes and enact contingency plans appropriately. State-of-the-art methods currently find trajectories that balance between nominal and contingency behavior, or plan for a…
In this paper, we focus on formal synthesis of control policies for finite Markov decision processes with non-negative real-valued costs. We develop an algorithm to automatically generate a policy that guarantees the satisfaction of a…
Autonomous agents often operate in scenarios where the state is partially observed. In addition to maximizing their cumulative reward, agents must execute complex tasks with rich temporal and logical structures. These tasks can be expressed…
We study the problem of minimizing the resource capacity of autonomous agents cooperating to achieve a shared task. More specifically, we consider high-level planning for a team of homogeneous agents that operate under resource constraints…
We study two canonical online optimization problems under capacity/budget constraints: the fractional one-way trading problem (OTP) and the integral online knapsack problem (OKP) under an infinitesimal assumption. Under the competitive…
Preferences play a key role in determining what goals/constraints to satisfy when not all constraints can be satisfied simultaneously. In this work, we study preference-based planning in a stochastic system modeled as a Markov decision…
We consider robust combinatorial optimization problems where the decision maker can react to a scenario by choosing from a finite set of $k$ solutions. This approach is appropriate for decision problems under uncertainty where the…
This paper deals with the optimal stopping problem under partial observation for piecewise-deterministic Markov processes. We first obtain a recursive formulation of the optimal filter process and derive the dynamic programming equation of…
In this work we address the problem of finding feasible policies for Constrained Markov Decision Processes under probability one constraints. We argue that stationary policies are not sufficient for solving this problem, and that a rich…
Risk-sensitive planning aims to identify policies maximizing some tail-focused metrics in Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Such an optimization task can be very costly for the most widely used and interpretable metrics such as threshold…
We show that one can approximate the least fixed point solution for a multivariate system of monotone probabilistic max(min) polynomial equations, referred to as maxPPSs (and minPPSs, respectively), in time polynomial in both the encoding…
Partially-observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) with discounted-sum payoff are a standard framework to model a wide range of problems related to decision making under uncertainty. Traditionally, the goal has been to obtain policies…